after afterall
by sorde
Summary: "This is really as simple as it gets: he tells her he loves her. She says, 'I can't.' And then he's gone." Beckett's getting married, and Castle decides it's time to share. AU


It's been a very long six months of not writing at all, but I saw this prompt and actually managed to make it through writing the whole thing, so... Here this is. Hope you enjoy!

Loosely based on S3 of The Office, with some snippets of dialogue grabbed from it, but no actual viewings of the show are required. Lyrics belong to William Fitzsimmons' 'After Afterall.'

* * *

after afterall.

An AU Castle story, from the prompt: _"Jim/Pam circa season 3, Caskett-style."_

* * *

 _please don't keep me._

This is really as simple as it gets: he tells her he loves her. She says, "I can't." And then he's gone.

/

The energy in the Old Haunt is buzzing, everyone a little bit tipsy and playing pool and dancing and impossibly _loud._ Any time a group of cops congregate in a bar, it seems like everything picks up, some of the more desolate regulars taking their cues and leaving, so it's just a group of people celebrating nothing. Tonight, though, everyone keeps wandering over to their table to give Beckett their best (unsolicited) _here's what it's like to be married_ advice, and to give Castle a parting fist-bump as they wish him well on his trip.

Kate glances over at him every time it happens, though, like she's checking in to make sure he's okay. He is very carefully _not_ okay, of course, because she's a week out from marrying Will Sorenson and he's hopelessly, impossibly in love with her, but he has his three weeks in Australia with Alexis to look forward to, and Richard Castle requires nobody's pity, least of all Kate Beckett's.

Well. He would care a bit more if she was concerned about him because she loved him back, of course, but she's marrying Sorenson and she's happy and the whole world knows it.

Mostly happy.

It seems like maybe she's occasionally somewhat happy every once in a while, anyway. And that's what matters. Kate's happiness.

Castle, of course, would love to make her full-time happy, but that's neither here nor there.

/

After a while, _a little bit tipsy_ quickly degenerates into _very very drunk_ , and when Espo peels his shirt off and promptly decides that Ryan _also_ needs his shirt off, so that they can be true 'bros,' Kate takes it as her cue to leave. For all that she is a little bit pissed at Will for refusing to come tonight, even though it's an official-not-official pre-wedding party from her coworkers, she does need to get home to him.

And away from her co-workers. If she has to see the look on Castle's face when someone mentions her wedding one more time... At least he's off to Australia for the wedding, although she would have liked to have seen him there. A lot. Kate has a very hard time imagining her wedding without Castle there.

Oookay, maybe she is a little tipsy.

When she leans across the booth to murmur her goodbye to Castle, though, he nods at her, once, then slides out of his side and follows her out the door.

"Sorry that Will couldn't show tonight," he offers as soon as they step out into the crisp April air. It's late enough – early enough? – that the city is almost, _almost_ quiet, and she can hear her soft snort even though she tried (sort-of tried) to mask it.

"This isn't his scene."

"Spending time with your friends?" Hmm, only a little pointed. Kate raises an eyebrow at him quickly, and he corrects himself. "Self-preservation, I'd imagine. I'd rather never see Sito's naked torso again."

"Or him trying to peel off Ryan's shirt."

"Oh, I don't know. Nothing quite like seeing Ryan's head stuck inside his mostly-off shirt. He looked a little bit like a pterodactyl."

She laughs at that, openly, in that way where she can feel her whole face lighting up but can't quite stop it. Castle's face lights up in response, and he looks oddly like he's had some sort of a revelation, watching her with his eyes glimmering in the lights of the streetlamps. They're literally just hovering immediately outside the doors of the bar, neither quite committing to heading home. They won't see each other for a while yet; he's going on his extremely-ill-timed vacation soon, and she's off to get... married. Wedding and honeymoon.

"What's time's your flight tomorrow?" she finally offers.

He's not quite looking at her, his eyes stuck to a place right over her shoulder, and he's in a trance for just a fraction of a second before he replies. "Oh, uh. Not until tomorrow evening."

"Will and I get back on the seventeenth, so I'll see you then?"

"Yeah," he breathes, but he's still not looking directly at her. It takes a second of pointedly awkward silence before he seems to pull himself up to full height, his eyes snapping to hers. "What are you supposed to say to the bride? Congratulations? Best wishes?"

Kate doesn't especially want to talk about her wedding with Castle, but she plays along. "Hmm, I had you pegged for a very sarcastic, 'Good luck.'"

He ignores her, clearly intent on a mission that she can't quite figure out. "Kate," he says, and his voice has that soft, unbearably-reasonable tone that keeps her rooted to the spot. "I need you to know..." He takes a breath, steels himself.

"I'm in love with you."

 _What?_

"What?"

There was that time, a few months back, when Castle had cornered her to tell her that he'd had a crush on her, at the beginning (as though she didn't know), and he'd spilled the beans to Ryan and wanted her to hear it from him first. It was just a stupid _crush_ , he'd emphasized, and that was before he knew about Will, so. He just had that brief thing for her that Castle had explicitly told her was in the past, and he'd followed it up with a "But I still wouldn't kick you out of bed," and that ridiculous eyebrow thing. Okay, Kate had maybe suspected that it was potentially not-quite-over, and the thought had made her palms sweat (still did), but she'd been with Will so _long_ and she'd kind of brushed the whole thing aside...

Castle is still standing there, staring at her thoughtfully, looking for all the world like he's just ripped his heart out of his chest and placed it in her less-than-capable hands. For one fleeting second, she thinks he's going to advance towards her, maybe kiss her, and she blurts out, "I can't," before she can think better of it.

He stops. Deflates a little bit, all of his steely resolve dissipating with her rejection. Nods at her once.

Walks away.

/

Kate, of course, immediately flees back into the bar and hunts Lanie down, and while she's basically borderline-hysterical while she retells the story, frantically trying to get Lanie to just _tell her what to do_ , she finds that all she really, really wants... is her mom.

But Lanie's good at what she does, and pulls Kate's attention back to her as they huddle in the back booth. As Espo's caretaker for the night, she's only tipsy, but she snaps her focus to Kate and starts in on the interrogation: "How do you feel?"

It's all very unfair, Kate thinks. She's been with Will for years, and then Castle waltzed in and was so unbearably annoying and childlike and _infantile_ and hot. Really really hot. Definitely a jackass, but also just extremely attractive. And then extremely sweet. The sweet's been coming out a lot more lately, actually, over burger runs to Remy's and lame jokes and teasingly harping on one another and... catching her mom's murderer. Talking late into the night to solve the whole thing. A very, very tiny amount of crying that Beckett would deny on her deathbed if required.

She's pretty sure that she keeps that all off of her face, and shrugs. "He's my best friend."

Lanie gives her a long look that pretty clearly says _we'll come back to_ that _later,_ and asks the only question that really matters: "Do you love him back?"

Kate lets out a long, watery sigh at that. "Yeah. I think I do."

/

It's all much easier than one would think; the wedding is cancelled. Will is very calm throughout the whole thing, goes immediately on the offence and tells her that he's taking a heretofore-nonexistent offer in Boston and that he'll see her around. Kate moves out, because the rent is astronomical for one person. She spends a whole summer eating only chicken, because they lost the deposit on the caterer and she's basically got a fridge packed with containers of different food conglomerates. Fish when she decides to mix it up. She tells Will to go on their honeymoon without her, because it's all her fault, and she spends those weeks wishing that she were in Australia, wishing that she were on her honeymoon instead of Will, wishing that she were anywhere but New York City.

Especially as the three weeks come and go, and the trek through Australia is done, and Castle still doesn't show up at the precinct. She swings by his loft, after, but nobody's home.

She doesn't see him for a while. It's funny, but the only thing she really wants from him is the chance to say _I'm in love with you too._

/

Castle comes back, of course. Involuntarily. Another one of those copycat cases, and they have to bring him in to ask him questions. Well, Ryan and Espo bring him in for questioning, and Kate tries very hard not to let her manic anticipation show. He shows up at the precinct looking distinctly uncomfortable, although he accepts her unexpected hug and feeds the birds with the boys and is otherwise the same as he's always been. When Kate opens her mouth to invite him back, to ask him how his vacation was, to kiss him, maybe, she really doesn't know at this point, he tops the whole thing off with _Gina's expecting me at home._

That weird fluttering in Kate's heart starts up again, like a little hummingbird hovering and tapping to get out of her chest, and she's almost completely sure that it's the beginnings of a heart attack. There's really no other possible explanation, except the whole fluttering thing stops itself short when Castle he takes a deep breath, turns to look at that point just over Kate's shoulder again, and says, "See you tomorrow?"

Everything stills, for a second, but she's distracted enough to forget all about what was clearly a near-miss of a heart attack. "Tomorrow!" she blurts out, eagerly, even though her heart pooled somewhere on the floor at her feet the minute the word _G_ _ina_ left his mouth.

/

And then things are normal. Well, normal-ish. Normal-adjacent, really. Castle shows up everyday, and they build theory together and laugh– Well, she laughs, sometimes. Smiles a lot when Castle comes up with a crazy theory. Works very hard to suppress the urge to press her lips to his eyebrow when he quirks it at her, to lick the corner of his mouth when he grins.

Kate is hopelessly in love with him, even though he still doesn't quite look her in the eyes. Even though he sometimes decides that he needs to go home _right now_ when they get caught in those moments where she could just lean forward and press her mouth to his. Even though he tries very hard to build theory with Ryan instead. Even though he always leaves at 5PM sharp, and doesn't bring her coffee, and only gives her the occasional disapproving look when he sees that she's slept on the breakroom couch again. Even though Gina drops him off at crime scenes now.

He's not all there, but at least he's there at all.

/

Castle, being Castle, invites everyone up to his house in the Hamptons after a particularly gruelling case. It's been seven months since his disappearing act, since he left the precinct and only came back against his will, but his eyes still crinkle in the corners all the same when he asks her and the boys and Montgomery and anyone else who can make it if they'd like to come over for the weekend.

(Her "yes!" comes out only a little hastily, and she tries very hard to cover it with a cough.)

They end up driving out in pairs; Espo brings Lanie along, Ryan and Jenny take their car, and Montgomery even manages to convince his wife to come. Gina is _not_ able to attend, as Castle informs Ryan when he asks, and he doesn't look altogether unhappy with the news. Kate really, really just wants him to be happy. She drives alone; Castle drives alone. It feels like a waste of gas, like a waste of energy, like a waste of whatever time they have left, but Kate has mastered the art of not pushing. She shut him down; he moved on. They can sometimes be alone in the same room with each other, but it's all a precarious balancing act.

Castle ends up barbecuing for them, whipping up these burgers in a sauce that tastes amazing, and they all sit on his deck outside and enjoy the heat of the sun and the laughter of friends and Kate thinks, just for a fleeting second, _I wish this could be forever._

As the sun finally starts to set, she's struck by how the orange light plays off of the contours of his face, how he looks younger in the twilight. When he catches her looking, he gives her this wide, elated grin, his whole face lighting up with it, and he wriggles his eyebrows at her like he's forgotten himself for a minute, forgotten where they are.

And then she blurts out, "I miss you."

There's a still moment where she stares at him, wide eyed, suddenly very aware of the pairs of eyes staring at her. And she flees into the house.

/

It's quiet, by the time he finds her sitting at the edge of the beach. The moon illuminates the water, everything in front of her impossibly vast, and yet she doesn't really feel small until he plops down next to her, rather ungracefully.

It takes him a moment, yet, but finally, he breathes. "Kate."

Her knees are bent in front of her, arms curled up around them, and she gives herself a heartbeat of a second to drop her forehead to them, well and truly balling herself up, before she turns again to him, resting her cheek against one arm. "Yeah." It's not exactly a question. She's not sure she wants to know what comes next.

"I know we haven't really... talked much, since I came back." The light from the moon gives his face this ghostly pallor, but when he turns his face to look at her, he actually _looks_ at her. Straight in the eyes. It's so reminiscent of how things were a year ago, even though nothing is the same, that she's stunned into their old patterns.

And she snorts. Loudly. "Is 'talked much' in air quotes?"

He huffs out a laugh. "Okay, we haven't really talked at all. I came back, but I guess I didn't really _come back._ " His eyes glance out at the water, quickly, like he's ashamed. Like he's nervous.

She lets that rest between them, giving it the space it deserves before she starts, rather wistfully, "I think we just keep getting our timing wrong. I shot you down, and then you did the same to me–"

"Well, 'shot down' is a pretty generous term," he cuts in, nudging her shoulder and grinning at her.

It makes her want to say the important things. "You knew I didn't get married," she hedges.

"I did."

Kate takes a deep breath in, letting Castle's nearness and the ocean water cleanse the last year for her. She's still not done. "I called off my wedding because of you."

She _feels_ his surprise, his whole body jolting. When did he get close enough to press his arm against his hers? "You- _what?_ "

He looks so sincerely appalled that it catches her off guard. "C'mon. You had to have known that."

"I most certainly did not."

"Castle, you told me–" Kate takes a deep breath in, prepares herself to actually say it. "You told me you loved me and I called off my wedding _the next day._ That wasn't exactly coincidence."

Castle shuffles back a fraction of an inches, and Kate's heart is in her throat again, but he's just manoeuvring himself around to face her, his expression open and earnest and almost, almost happy. "But– You said _I can't._ " His voice cracks.

She swallows. "I did. Say that. I was also, you know, engaged." She expects him to bristle at that, like he always did last year; he used to slump down a little bit, avert his gaze whenever she mentioned her impending wedding, and, seriously, she is _such an idiot_ for never figuring out that Castle's feelings ran deep. And she owes him the explanation. "Will was safe. And you... snuck up on me. Grudgingly. Against my will." It's her turn to smile at him, knock her shoulder into his.

He laughs openly at that. "Like a ninja."

"Ninja? Please. Like some sort of parasite, maybe." They're grinning at each other now, openly pleased, making eye contact. All the things she's missed.

"Like a _parasite?_ Katherine Beckett, I never," Castle says, and he channels his mother's god-given acting ability to play up his affront. "You could at least try to make it sound romantic. _Like a cloud when there is no wind_ , at the bare minimum."

Her laugh comes out honestly, earnestly. "You wanna cap that simile off with credit to Dickens, or should I start calling your publisher to tell her that you've resorted to plagiarism?"

Castle laughs right along with her, looking proud that she caught him, but it slides right off a second later. "Speaking of Gina..."

"Were we?" Kate tries.

"'Calling my publisher?'"

"Ah."

"We... broke up. A few weeks ago. Seems I was looking for magic, but I'd already found it elsewhere." Kate's heart pools on the floor all over again, but this time she's smiling widely at him and he's looking her in the eye and none of it is fake, nothing contrived. She's ready, opens her mouth to say it, but he cuts her off. "Let's try this again, from the top: Kate–"

"Wait, wait wait wait." Richard Castle is absolutely _not_ stealing her thunder.

"Wait?"

"No, not– Not _wait_. Not like, 'I can't,' wait. Just– I want to say..."

And then, like it's been rehearsed a thousand times before, they both blurt out, "I'm in love with you."

/

 _This_ is really as simple as it gets: he takes her on a date. She kisses him at the door. And it's just the start.

 _(please don't leave me.)_


End file.
